With a list of what school administrators are calling critical needs but with little money to meet them, Antioch Unified School District is considering asking voters to help out.

After floating the idea late last month, trustees this week revisited the possibility of issuing general obligation bonds to bring the district’s aging campuses — including a 60-year-old elementary school — up to par.

Grouped into 11 categories ranging from cafeterias, libraries and playgrounds to restroom plumbing, roofing and seismic retrofitting, the renovation, repairs and upgrades are expected to cost nearly $150 million, said interim chief business official Denise Porterfield.

“We have used every available dollar … to bring our schools up to standard,” she said, noting that no schools in the district are eligible for the so-called modernization funds that the state allocates to a campus once every 25 years based on the size of its student body.

The money first must be used to make the campus more accessible to disabled students as well as eliminate health- and safety-related risks.

And although Antioch Unified can — and will — draw on the $2 million it has socked away in a so-called capital facilities fund, that sum is nowhere nearly big enough to cover the list of needs, Porterfield said.

The school district already has tapped a San Ramon survey research firm to start working on questions that it will pose to 400 registered voters in a random telephone survey toward the end of this month.

The poll is intended to give the district a better idea of whether taxpayers would endorse a bond measure before it spends time and money getting the issue on the ballot.

The measure would need 55 percent approval to pass.

Unlike the citywide survey the district commissioned in spring 2006 for the same purpose, this one will be conducted in those parts of Antioch that aren’t in one of its three Mello-Roos districts, said Brad Senden, managing partner of the Center for Community Opinion.

The results of the previous survey weren’t promising because homeowners already supporting schools with their Mello-Roos property taxes aren’t interested in spending any more, Senden said.

The most they were willing to pay was $28 per $100,000 of their home’s assessed value — not the $60 per $100,000 of assessed value the district was hoping for, he said.

Although Senden acknowledged that Antioch residents are perceived to be opposed to taxes on principle, Senden says the poll will show whether the public has become any more receptive to the idea in the past year.

This time around pollsters will solicit opinions on tax rates ranging from $28 to $45 per $100,000 of assessed value.

Trustees don’t agree on how far the district should go in asking voters how they want their money to be spent.

At Wednesday’s board meeting, Trustee Gary Agopian proposed that the survey also gauge reactions to the idea of spending bond money on Antioch High School’s aging swimming pool.

Although students still are using it, the pool is cracked, leaks constantly and isn’t deep enough for water polo teams to compete without touching the bottom, said board member Walter Ruehlig.

But he and board member Claire Smith objected to suggesting that the district would consider spending money on projects that aren’t absolutely necessary.

Giving voters the idea that the district might slip a luxury item such as pools or artificial turf for playing fields onto its list of must-haves could erode the public’s confidence, Ruehlig said.

“I want (a bond measure) to pass — I don’t want to jettison this whole project because we’ve adulterated it a little bit,” he said.

Come Election Day, people might assume that the nonessentials they discussed during the poll are part of the bond measure even if they aren’t, Smith added.

The district’s next step is to pass a resolution stating its intent to form a School Facility Improvement District, which will be followed by a public hearing.

At their Oct. 10 meeting trustees will review the proposed boundaries, Porterfield said, adding that the assessment district must be formed no later than November.

Rowena Coetsee is a staff writer who has been covering all the news that's fit to print since beginning her career at the Palo Alto Times. A graduate of UC Santa Barbara, she joined Bay Area News Group as a features writer and these days works a beat in East Contra Costa County that includes city government, K-12 education and a fire district. When she is not on the computer, she can be found tending to her garden or enjoying the company of her German Shepherd.

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